Hi guys! and welcome back to Average Joe for the first update of 2013! Wa-hoo!

It’s pretty awesome to be able to step back and take a look over the past year of Average Joe; whenever I hit the “first” button on this website, I always get such a shudder from the sheer horribleness of the horrible …horrible thing (dammit, adjetives are hard) I see that was posted as the first few strips – thankfully though, I can be happy with the way that things have improved over the year – and am especially proud of being able to work in a switch to two updates a week – relatively slow for a webcomic, I know; but considered with the 9-5 job, the 7-8hr a week choir commitments and the need to spend some time with my family, I’m pretty happy with things overall

Also, today’s strip is one I’ve been looking forward to doing for a while – I’ve enjoyed the idea of the Director holding a bit of a grudge against Joe for the events of Strip #8, and have been looking forward to him getting some revenge. We can expect to see some of the fallout from today’s strip on Sunday, I’m sure

So, I’m planning on taking a week off the strip next week – I promised my wife I would spend some time with her over the holiday period that didn’t consist of me sitting at the computer drawing while she was out and about the house doing various things! Hopefully updates should continue as normal throughout this period, as I have been working away over the past couple of days to try and get ahead (…so…many…distractions…), but will let everyone know for sure on Sunday’s update.

Thanks everyone – I’m really lucky to have so many regular readers as I do, and I look forward to spending the next year drawing ever more people into the vortex of Average Joe! Some fun stories are planned for the months ahead, and I can’t wait to begin sharing them with you all!